Good vs Evil – English Essay Essay

There is neither a definite good nor evil, but only the grey area in-between. The Japanese proverb of Yin and Yang states that in all good there is some evil and in all evil there is dome good thus without good there can be no evil and without evil there can be no good. Evil was once described to me as ‘The inability to feel sympathy’ and at first I agreed with this analogy but upon further thought and deliberation I decided that it was not entirely true, for if evil is the inability to feel sympathy then that makes all acts of sympathy good. However, that analogy would make an act, one that almost the entire world agrees is purely evil, an act of good.

The act in question is the destruction of the twin towers of 9/11, because the perpetrators were sympathetic. They were sympathetic towards their country and their people who, contrary to popular knowledge, had already been invaded and were being oppressed by the USA who were trying to secure their oil reserves.

There is no way to moderate universally what is considered good and evil. Every man believes in some way that their own actions are just and righteous whilst also believing that their enemy’s actions are acts of evil purely because they oppose his own wishes thus making all man good in his own eyes yet evil in the eyes of those he opposes.

Each and every one of us must decide for ourselves what is good and what is evil, and yet we must still conform to the “norms” of society. The definition of what is right and what is wrong may come from many different places. Some blindly accept what society tells then to where others question society and still others actively oppose society’s views. Some get their definition from the relative religious scripture and follow that without question whereas others merely see it as a general guideline whereupon to base their actions.

I believe that the concepts of good and bad, righteousness and evil, just and unjust exist purely to justify man’s actions and that they have and will continue to change to fit the person whose action requires justifying. Alas, these unflinching opposing forces are bound to perpetually clash as they strive for a balance. For without either life as we know it could never exist, perhaps life at all could not exist.

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